Talk:Mubarak (name)

Confusing reference
This reference — "Del. Assyrian, HWB, 187" — is so severely abbreviated as to be unusable. What does "Del." stand for, and what is "HWB"? Please remember that Wikipedia is aimed at a general audience. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 21:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I would guess Friedrich Delitzsch, Handwörterbuch... AnonMoos (talk) 21:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

pronunciation notation not understandable
I can't understand what you mean the pronunciation is (where is the stress?). (If you would adhere to the practice of giving authoritative references for your statements--a dictionary in this case--I would be able to look up the pronunciation in the dictionary. This case shows that supplying references is beneficial. But you don't want to do it.)--Imz (talk) 21:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Arabic Wikipedia باراك
That's presumably the transcription of the English pronounciation of Barack Obama's name into Arabic script, not necessarily the spelling of a real Arabic name... AnonMoos (talk) 01:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you are correct to some degree. Based on the passive form of Barack, which is Mubarak مبارك ,which is written without second "Alef" or "A". :Therefore, I think the correct spelling is  بارك without the second letter " ا " "Alef" or "A". But the problem comes from the Arabic spelling of the name of Barack Obama باراك . If I find something I will update it.
 * Yadamavu (talk) 21:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

it appears that Arabic media aren't treating Barack as an Arabic name, they are just transliterating it from the American English. The problem would appear to be that Bārak isn't proper Arabic (the correct form being Mubārak), which isn't too surprising seein gthat it appears to originate in Kenya. It seems that Arabic بارك will tend to be read as "Bark" or "Park", so that the extra alif is inserted to ensure bisyllabic pronunciation. --dab (𒁳) 09:18, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have consulted Lane. It turns out the etymological root meaning is "to prostrate, to kneel", from bark "breast", i.e. "to fall on one's breast". As always when going into Classical Arabic, this quickly becomes all about camels. Thus abraktuhu means "I made him (viz. a camel) kneel down". A bark is also "a herd of camels lying on their bellies".

The meaning "to bless" is secondary, as you make someone kneel before blessing them. tabarrak bihi is a derived verb meaning "he had a blessing". Of course the "kneeling" implication was obscured. When you say tabarak llahu "blessed be God", you aren't suggesting would God please kneel to be blessed.

As a noun, birkah is "a mode of a camel kneeling down and lying upon the breast". By contrast, barakah is "a blessing" (note that the spelling is identical without vocalization). A mubārak (stem III passive participle, mufā`alun) is "one gifted with or made to possess barakah". I fail to find bārak as an entry, so it probably doesn't mean anything in particular in Classical Arabic, and also grammatically (fā`alun) it isn't a form I can pinpoint, so this is probably really just a Kenyan apocope of the properly Arabic mubārak. --dab (𒁳) 09:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I think this article's scope should be extended to include the root brk in general, including the given names Mubarak and Bara(c)k. It is also a little, shall we say, Obama-centric, to title the article for the Kenyan variant rather than the Classical Arabic one. --dab (𒁳) 09:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * In both Biblical Hebrew and in Arabic, a broad range of verbal stems and nominal derivatives have the basic "bless"/"blessed"/"blessing" meaning, so while this meaning may be technically etymologically "secondary", it's presumably been established across a number of languages for at least 3,000 years or so... AnonMoos (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * P.S. CaCaC isn't really a typical pattern for personal nouns in Arabic, unless you go to CaCCāC (with doubled middle consonant), which is a pattern for agent nouns or occupational nouns (i.e. "person who habitually does X").  I would guess that "Barack" probably comes from (or has been influenced by) some form of Semitic language other than standard written classical Arabic (rather than being a failed attempt to imitate standard classical Arabic). AnonMoos (talk) 12:53, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * maybe. We'd need more information about the distribution of the given name. Does it only occur in Kenya, or also in Ethiopia etc.? --dab (𒁳) 08:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Trivia?
Why are the names of Barack Obama and his father being removed as trivia, DGtal? I don't understand. Because I don't agree that it's trivia, I've added the information back in. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 17:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's about as relevant as "People called David". Most first names have between hundreds to tens of millions of people with the same name, some of them inevitably notable. You can unboubtably add them to the disambig page (in this case Barack (disambiguation)), but it's pointless in an article meant to explain the name. DGtal (talk) 08:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know if there is a standard in place for things like this, but I would note that Baruch contains a list of famous people with that name as well, as do most of the articles for surnames. I would say that the comparison to David doesn't apply because David is a much more common name.  I also wouldn't be in favor of a merger of the two articles Barack (given name) and Barack (disambiguation), although it is one possible way forward.  Soap Talk/Contributions 19:15, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't think you'll find many people who agree with you, DGtal, since you're running against the stream of widespread wiki practice. Flopsy Mopsy and Cottonmouth (talk) 19:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Early cognates
I find it highly unlikely that the reported forms of Sabean barqac,  Palmyrene baraq and Assyrian Biruq should derive from the root B-R-K rather than B-R-Q. Seeing, like, that they are all written with q. --dab (𒁳) 09:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

In the light of the "belly of a camel" etymology of the root, it is even more unlikely that these early names are from this root rather than the very productive brq.

Even Barca is more likely from brq than from brk. But references to the contrary are welcome of course. The association of "kneeling" with "blessed" appears to first arise in Biblical Hebrew, i.e. the 6th century BCE, with Baruch ben Neriah, but I haven't verified this. --dab (𒁳) 10:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Then why do forms from root "b-r-k" occur dozens of times with the "bless" meaning in the Pentateuch, starting with Genesis 1:22? The form "Barukh" occurrs eight times in Genesis alone, starting with 9:26.  I really don't think that the fact that the "bless" meaning is spread across the Nif`al, Pi`el, Pu`al, and Hitpa`el verb stems (plus the Qal passive participle) is very compatible with this being some kind of "late Biblical Hebrew" form... AnonMoos (talk) 13:04, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

hm, yes, I was wondering the same thing while I wrote the above. You are probably right. The "blessed" meaning quite apparently predates Biblical Hebrew, and is common to Arabic and Hebrew.

This doesn't take away my suspicion that the above forms with q are unrelated. I would be interested whether the root does in fact occur in Akkadian. I'll try to figure it out. --dab (𒁳) 08:16, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Let me jump in here and tell you that it does indeed exist in Akkadian, and that I am right now trying to put together an article on the Hebrew name Barak which includes a well documented source on the subject. What I am finding is that Barak means "blessing" and "praise" in Hebrew at least as much as "Mubarak" does in Arabic— stating in the intro to this article that the names are "unrelated" seems ridiculous as they both clearly derive from the same Phoenecian root (B-R-K).  Is there any evidence to the contrary anywhere??  It looks to me like this line should be rewritten to state: "closely related to the Hebrew name Barack" and that at some point Wikipedia should have an article titled "Barack (Semitic name)" which brings the two articles together at last where they truly seem to belong.  Or please show me I am wrong (?).  KDS 4444  Talk  08:18, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Barack ≠ Mubarak
I've removed the "Barack" references, as the name under discussion is not "Barack." I accept that the names are related etymologically, but they are not identical. We don't lump Mary, Maria, Marie, and all the other derivations of Miriam in a single article. So we shouldn’t lump Barack with Mubarak. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 05:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we shouldn't lump them together, but as of now there is no "Barack (given name)" article, it's just a re-direct to here. I don't see how it could hurt to have information on "Barack" here for now, that's probably what most people are looking for when they find this article anyways. –Surachit (talk) 08:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Hebrew equivalent of Mubarak is Baruch (ברוך), "blessed one". Barak is spelt ברק and means "lightning". (Is there root b-r-q in Arabic?) ‎The Hebrew word for knee, ברך is pronounced "berech". ברך may also be a verb "(he) blessed", pronounced "barach". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.172.108.100 (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2019 (UTC)